QUAID-E-AZAM AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL (DESIGNATE)

QUAID-E-AZAM 

AS GOVERNOR-GENERAL (DESIGNATE)

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah wasGovernor- General (designate) from 7th August, 1947 to 14th August 1947. During these seven days he attended many social functions and met a large number of Muslim League workers and elite of the city. However, most important of them all was his historic and soul stirring address to the members of the constituent assembly on 11th August, 1947. I was in attendance.

 

Constituent Assembly of Pakistan met for the first time in Sindh Assembly building on 11th August, 1947 and unanimously elected Quaid-e-Azam as its first president. The President elect then delivered his historic speech, a master-piece of his legal genius and constitutional mind. He briefly highlighted salient features of policies to be followed by government of the new state.

He reminded the constituent Assembly of its two main functions, viz. framing of the future constitution of Pakistan and of functioning as a full and complete sovereign body as federal legislature. About the treatment of minorities and their status in social and state affairs, he stressed on the principle of equality in these words: “…everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste, creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligations…We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are equalcitizens of one state…All these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community—will vanish. You will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindusand Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense, as citizens of the state.”

 

This address of August 11 and subsequent addressof August 14 at the Pakistan’s constituent assembly taken together are the Magna Carta of Pakistan. Here the point to remember is that whereas he spoke of the “rights and privileges”, he also made them conscious of their “obligations” to the state. He told them that it is no one way traffic—always take, take and take but you have certain commitments to the State as well.

 

Mr. John F. Kennedy said the same thing, some 14 years later, in his inaugural address as President of the USA in 1961, when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country!” Quaid-e-Azambeautifully summed up all that in 1947 in one word “obligations”.

 

The last social function of Quaid-e-Azam in life, as Mr. Jinnah, was the banquet he gave in honour of Lord and Lady Mountbatten of Burma on 13th August, 1947 after their arrival in Karachi for Independence Day ceremonies.

 

The next morning, on 14th August, 1947 Pakistan emerged as a sovereign state when the union jack was hauled down and Pakistan flag was hoisted at the top ofSindh Assembly building.